Ira Gitler

Ira’s Contributions

June 2002 Overdue Ovation

It was at a league ice-hockey game on Nov. 11, 1994, that Igor Butman added another exciting chapter to his life story. The other team, frustrated by Butman’s skill and speed, tried to slow him down illegally, slashing his hands with a stick. Butman turned...

05/06/02 Concerts

The 27th International Jazzfestival Bern was dedicated to Norman Granz, who lived the latter portion of his life in Switzerland and died there last Thanksgiving Day. The Saturday, May 4 night of recognition was called Artists' Tribute to Jazz at the Philharmonic...

04/11/02 Concerts

Pianist Bill Charlap and his trusty bandmates, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, did an early-spring week at the newly reopened Jazz Standard in support of Stardust, his second Blue Note CD, a tribute to the music of Hoagy Carmichael...

01/10/02 Concerts

From leader Buster Williams' unaccompanied, opening bass rumination, which clued and cued drummer Lenny White into some shimmeringly rhythmic cymbal sounds, the attention of the near-capacity audience was whetted. With the entrance of Eric Reed's piano and...

11/11/01 Concerts

Do you know who Charlie Watts' favorite swing-era, big-band drummer is? It's Dave Tough, not a flashy soloist but a man who made a large ensemble glow by dint of an inner flame that he attended with fidelity and a minimum of fuss. During a gig at the Blue...

09/29/01 Concerts

It seems as if some club bookers, perhaps taking a cue from concert (and festival) producers are presenting more tribute or theme shows. Birdland, by dividing its week into one, two or three-night engagements, gives itself leeway to do such special projects...

08/28/01 Concerts

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival has long since become a New York institution and its 9th edition displayed all the features that make it so. People come from neighborhoods all over the city and the metropolitan area to fill the Lower East Side's Tompkins...

05/08/01 Concerts

It may not have the reputation of other, more high-profile, annual European festivals but this 26th edition of the Bern Jazz Festival, run by Hans Zurbrugg and his wife, Marianne Gauer, proved that in terms of scope, production and presentation it deserves...

April 2001 News

In honor of Rudy Van Gelder’s ongoing remastering of the Blue Note catalog, we asked Ira Gitler to reminisce about some of the original recording sessions, for various labels, at Van Gelder’s famous studio. In 1952, Prestige Records owner Bob Weinstock asked...

July/August 2000 Albums

It is not that expensive for an individual to produce his or her own CD. The cost becomes less when you don't have to use a studio for recording a group, but rather just transfer already recorded material from 78 rpm, LP or tape in a professional manner...

November 1999 Features

By the time you read this you well could be looking up someone in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz, but as I’m starting to write this I’m about to read S to Z for the last time before the book goes into its final configuration. This is the sprint at...